Obama embraces gay, lesbian bi-nationals on immigration

As expected, President Obama endorsed inclusion of bi-national same sex couples in his own immigration framework announced in Las Vegas Tuesday, in contrast to Monday’s bipartisan Senate framework which omitted mention of gays and lesbians.

Obama did not mention bi-nationals in his Las Vegas speech but they were included in the written fact sheet, endorsing reform that “treats same-sex families as families by giving U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents the ability to seek a visa on the basis of a permanent relationship with a same-sex partner.”

Currently, married gay and lesbian couples, of whom one partner is a U.S. citizen and the other a foreigner, are banned under the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act from the spousal immigration preference given to straight couples. DOMA is currently before the Supreme Court. If the court overturns DOMA, the issue should be moot for gay and lesbian couples married any of the nine states (and D.C.) that permit it.

Gay rights activists worry that in the long, tough negotiations ahead, the interests of the small number of gay and lesbian couples of whom one member is a foreigner (est. 28,500) could be ditched to woo GOP votes. (How many depends first on how deeply Senate Republicans splinter on immigration, and second, on whether House Speaker John Boehner would allow an immigration bill to come to the floor that would need Democrats to pass.)

Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who joined the bipartisan Senate Gang of Eight for comprehensive immigration reform, on Tuesday morning dismissed the issue as less important than broader immigration issues. “It’s something that, frankly, is not of paramount importance at this time,” McCain said. “We’ll have to look at it … to gauge how the majority of Congress feels. … We need to get broad consensus on our proposal to start with.”

Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck warned against Obama’s leftward tilt: “There are a lot of ideas about how best to fix our broken immigration system. Any solution should be a bipartisan one, and we hope the President is careful not to drag the debate to the left and ultimately disrupt the difficult work that is ahead in the House and Senate.”

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, a chieftain of the Gang of Eight, praised Obama for leaving “space” to Congress to work out the details: “He is using the bully pulpit to focus the nation’s attention on the urgency of immigration reform and set goals for action on this issue. But he is also giving lawmakers on both sides the space to form a bipartisan coalition.”